Corporate Giving

A spiffy season ticket flyer from the Diamondbacks arrived Saturday, proving, if nothing else, a need to target their direct mail a little better. It's a slick little brochure, hinting at the usual illusory benefits attributed to ******* who pay way, way too much for 83 baseball games. Despite the fact the mailer took a tad too long to roll out, as evidenced by Randy Johnson's absence within it, the Diamondbacks should still take pride in their effort. At least they avoided the temptation of enumerating any Baby Backs. Nothing says death to potential season ticket sales quite like "Carlos Quentin is our best position player."

As I say, I have no desire to purchase their package, despite a love for the game and more than a passing interest in Mr Quentin. In the flyer, adjacent to the intricate seating diagram, is this blurb - in lieu of a price list apparently - hinting at my disinterest:

We're giving our season ticket holders a bigger advantage than ever before over single game pricing.

Notice how we've been given something. Not a competitive team (not yet anyway), but a gift nonetheless. As most fans already know, season ticket holders (STH) havent been given anything - rather, MLB franchises have systematically taken away attractive, reasonably priced single game tickets from most everyone else. The resulting illusion of season ticket(ST) "value" is a cornerstone of MLB revenue strategy and has met with some success, as evidenced by the amusing paradox that overall attendance is up despite the fact fewer unique fans are attending games. In other words, turnstiles are turning more, but it's pretty much the same people night in and night out - the 15 to 25 thousand STH in each city who've been ******** into this shell game.

During the Dbacks memorable inaugural season, companion and I sat just off home plate in the lower bowl for $38 per game. In 1999, we paid $41 for 100 wins and the playoffs. In exchange for a World Series, the damage ran about $46. Just six years later (and 4 years removed from fielding a competitive or remotely interesting squad), the magnanimous Dbacks now offer esteemed STH those identical seats...for $62.

As a gift, mind you.

If you're paying more to watch a considerably inferior product, where's the "advantage"?  Well, if you bought these same single game seats today, the ones I paid $38 for less than a decade ago, they'll run you $110-125 after all the nauseating online charges and fees. The STH "advantage"(ie $62) hinges on this false dichotomy: the illusion of only two choices.

A third choice, of course, is not to purchase baseball tickets at all and instead pursue more attractive entertainment options with one's savings. Alienated fans have made that choice - millions of times in the Phoenix market alone. Baseball is fond of comparing their high end tickets with pricier basketball and football seats - and their upper deck options against $10 movie tickets. A typical baseball game, however, doesnt have the energy level or entertainment value of a typical NBA or NFL game, according to most sports fans anyway, and while it's plausible that a cheap seat to watch the Mets play on a nice day at Shea is worth more than seeing a run of the mill movie, it's also true that a good first run movie in a comfortable seat is infinitely more enjoyable than the vast balance of Diamondback games endured from the upper deck.

A fourth choice, for baseball diehards needing a fix, is to forego inflated box office prices for secondary ticket markets (ie ebay, stubhub, word of mouth) more aligned with a seat's actual value. In Phoenix, this consistently entails repurchasing seats from rather desperate STH's, sometimes at a significant discount.

Another misleading premise about season ticket value has to do with long term utility - the implicit notion that fans' level of enjoyment stays relatively constant regardless of how many games one attends. It's one thing to sustain utility over time in an authentic, high energy park like Fenway or Wrigley, but after witnessing Chad Tracy hit his first ten homers for a last place team in a less than charming, half empty airplane hangar, all but the least discerning consumers feel pretty foolish paying top dollar just to "be there" for the second ten. Diamondback STH who insist their ballpark experience hasn't deteriorated are fools or liars, either too ashamed of their dubious investment to accurately assess it, or resigned to the drab ballpark each night due to some sort of family trouble at home.

So, Diamondbacks, thanks for thinking of me and for wanting me "to be part of our team again." I understand you have representatives standing by, ready to recommend a plan "right for me". It's just that, well, I've given your opportunity a good deal of thought.

Here's your flyer back. By all means, think of it as a gift.